


Disowned

by NavyRuby



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, No Storm in Arcadia Bay, Pizza AU, Slow Burn, inconsequential time powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 13:39:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13435887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NavyRuby/pseuds/NavyRuby
Summary: Victoria Chase get disowned, forced to live life on her own meritsMax Caulfield works at a pizza place, depressed and a messChloe is gay, just really...really gay





	Disowned

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is a completely self indulgent au because i work at a pizza place and constantly think about making pizza place aus

Your name is Victoria Chase and your life as you know it has just ended in front of you.

 

Well. Not ended. Saying it ended would mean there was a conclusion, something that had been built up to, forewarned. A satisfying last page to an overall satisfying book.

 

But that’s not the kind of ending you get, not the kind you want.

 

Your ending is a fitting one, something that’s been bound to happen since the start of you trying to commandier the vortex club. Something that was supposed to happen since before you even got into Blackwell probably.

 

A blood sodden, disastrous ending; One where your life and financial situation is ripped to shreds by the hounds that haunt your waking moments. Taking the forms of alcohol and responsibility.

 

Your name is Victoria Chase. Or at least it was. Your parents have disowned you.

 

-

 

It hadn’t been a big problem at first. It was actually not even a problem in the grand scheme of things; Just a regular reckless thing that regular reckless teens like you partake in.

 

Where it had went wrong however was letting Hayden drive your goddamn convertible. Where it went wronger was when it was filled to the brim of completely unsober idiotic teenagers (in which the pilot was just as unsober as his company).

 

You think now, of how it could’ve ended up if you had been just a little less drunk. A little less high.

 

Would you have told them to stop? Would you have forbade them from getting anywhere near a vehicle, much less yours?

 

No, probably not.

 

Your methods of self preservation haven’t been quite... Prevalent. In the recent years. Risk taking was slowly becoming less of a hobby and more of a profession. The more it made your heart beat the more you felt alive. The more you felt like it was the right choice.

 

This is why you're sitting on your bed now, not bothering to cry or fight back against the tirade your mother’s been throwing at you since after she found out about the crash.

 

You think you deserve this. And you do.

 

(You don’t want this)

 

-

 

A day later, after all had been said and done and everyone that had been affected by the crash was accounted for (miraculously no one was hurt, the only thing totaled was your car and your reputation), you get a text from your dad.

 

**[4:15 P.M Father] I’m incredibly disappointed in you Victoria. You’ve ruined the name of this family, the reputation we’ve been trying to build from the ground up. Do you think we got rich out of the blue? We’re self made Victoria. You’re accident cost me and the Chase Space out of some very important clientele. Which means Money if you’re unaware.**

 

You roll your eyes. Self made? Yeah right, unless he means he self made himself to leech off of your great great grandfather’s money his whole life. The Chase’s got lucky with their money and you know this. It’s something you used to hate to think of, denying it if anyone at school dared to think that your family was ‘just lucky’ to be rich. As if finding a random spot of oil in buttfuck Texas was considered a less respectable way to be rich than others.

 

But now you don’t care so much, considering you’re no longer Victoria Chase.

 

**[4:17 P.M Father] No one wants to do business with a man who has an unstable daughter. We’ve seen this behavior from you before and turned a blind eye but this is unavoidable. I hope you understand that people could have died, the PR from that would have been disastrous. You deserve this and I hope it makes you rethink your choices.**

 

Asshole. You throw your phone on the ground (lightly because you’re not sure where you’d find the money to get a new one now if it perishes). Your father has always been a stoic man, absorbed in business and caring solely about people only for their weight in social currency.

 

Before you had also been willing to turn a blind eye to how he acted, much like he turned a blind eye to your actions. That’s kind of how your whole family operated you guess. Blind to each other’s actions and stumbling across each other's paths every now and then.

 

Now, after being forced to swallow the bitter pill that is abandonment, you allow yourself to get pissed off. Pissed off at your dad, your mom, yourself.

 

The empty house, the butlers that tried to fill it, the dog that you had always wanted but couldn’t get because you should be focusing on schoolwork and not a pet.

 

You get pissed off at the lonely winters and half full holidays. Holidays not spent with family or friends but with strangers. Strangers that wanted to rub elbows with you only because of your money or your family name.

 

Well fuck off assholes because now you don’t have either.

 

…

 

You suppose this could be the beginning to a break down.

 

Grabbing the pillow underneath your head you use it to cover your mouth and scream as loud as possible.

 

-

 

Across the hall you become Max Caulfield who had just been woken up from a pretty a-okay mid morning nap.

 

“What the fuck hell shit? Damn,” You groggily say, literally rolling out of bed and falling onto the carpet of your floor.

 

You take a moment to rub your hands on it. It’s a nice and harmless stim but it reminds you of your home in Seattle. Of the horrible mistake your parents made when they bought a house that had a carpeted kitchen (seriously who the hell builds a house like that?).

 

It kind of depresses you to think about being back there, so lonely so isolated. Having to vacuum the rug in the kitchen every ten minutes because honestly what the fuck.

 

Getting up you throw your hoodie on (your best safety blanket so far) and debate leaving to get breakfast.

 

It’s four pm but you really do want waffles…

 

Your phone bleeps a bleep and you pull it out to check your texts.

 

Wowser, three from Chloe.

 

**[2:16 P.M Chloe] Mad max!! you better come to work today! We’ve got this huge ass order and i really don’t wanna spin all this dough by myself :(**

 

**[3:00 P.M Chloe] max i sw2g, if you ACTUALLY leave me alone ill cry. So much, The whole pizza place will be drowned just like in Alice the goddamn wonderland**

 

**[4:18 P.M Chloe] … wowwwwwww wow wow, you didn’t come in and now yur gonna have to pay all my medical bills because of the carpal tunnel you’ve forced onto me**

 

Oh Shit. Your job.

 

You took up Chloe’s offer to work with her at a local pizza delivery place (Papa Joe’s, Absolutely no relation to John) about a month ago? You were a ‘shoo in’ (Chloe’s words not yours) because you were one of the only applicants that conceded to a drug testing.

 

You don’t deliver pizza considering your lack of car and lack of license but you think you do a pretty good damn job at tossing dough.

 

Which you just didn’t actually do and forced your best friend to fill in for you for half of your shift.

 

Wow maybe you do belong in Seattle, at least there you didn’t have any friends to disappoint.

 

**[4:19 P.M Max] Ohmg Chloe i am so sorry, i was so tired from class today and when i got back i just; fell asleep**

 

**[4:19 P.M Chloe] School, on a Sunday? Maxi Pad I thought i made you into a better liar than this**

 

You freeze your fingers on the phone out of embarrassment. You’ve never been a good liar but that doesn’t stop you from compulsively doing it. Like a child you use empty words to get out of awkward situations that you can’t otherwise see a way out of. Which makes it even more mortifying when you eventually (or in your case: Immediately) get caught.

 

Not wanting your best friend to think that you’re a liar (a bad liar) you raise your hand out in an all too familiar way; Pausing to feel the flow of time pass around you, bringing yourself back to before you made the dumb lie.

 

After a few months of having time on a literal and metaphorical leash, you’ve gotten pretty adept at it. At least you think. There’s not exactly a leader board for people that are awesome at controlling time but you think you’d at least make top ten.

 

And yes you would definitely use ASS as the initials.

 

**[4:19 P.M Max] Ohmg Chloe i am so sorry, i’ve been feeling pretty down recently. It’s nothing bad but I had to nap or i might’ve exploded :c**

 

You decided this time around that there wasn’t really a point in lying anyways. She’s gonna see the dark circles under your eyes eventually, she’ll realize that there’s more than one reason you’ve been inseparable from your hoodie recently.

 

There’s a big pause between the texts and you realize that she’s probably feeling pretty bad now for chewing you out. Of course, she wasn’t actually That harsh to you but Chloe tends to hold herself to a pretty high best friend standard.

 

And best friends don’t exactly get mad when their best friends are too depressed to leave bed on a Sunday.

 

By the time she’s texted you back you’ve gotten your uniform on (a black polo tucked into khakis with a tasteful belt, finished off with a hat bearing your company's logo) and you’re ready to make up the lost hours.

 

**[4:32 P.M Chloe] Shit max i’m sorry, i’m not actually mad, you don’t have to come in either i’ll keep covering for you**

 

**[4:32 P.M Max] nah dude it’s cool i promise! I’m still gonna show up to work, need the dough you know**

 

**[4:33 P.M Chloe] omg you fuckin nerd**

 

**[4:34 P.M Max] :3**

 

In the hall you meet Victoria Chase, uncharastically slumping against the frame of her doorway. She's looking pointedly at her phone screen. You’re eyes must’ve lingered a bit too long because when she looks at you it’s nearly vitriolic.

 

“What the fuck are you looking at little Caesar?”

 

Your brain struggles with a response, “...I don’t work there? I work at Papa Joe's?” seriously the answer is on your hat, you thought Victoria was smart.

 

She rolls her eyes more than you thought was physically possible for a human being, “Oh my god What _Ever_.” She turns her attention back to whatever was so interesting on her phone, leaving you chilled and confused.

 

You just shrug it off and continue on.

 

-

 

The day had ended at the shop without too much of a struggle, the only real road bump was the twenty pizza order you had left all to Chloe (you really are a shitty best friend).

 

Papa Joe’s itself was more of a knock off than it’d like to admit. The owner desperately wanted a Papa John’s in this area of Arcadia Bay but for some reason he couldn’t get the license to build one so he just...Went and built this slightly greasier version.

 

Not that you complain much, the pizza’s good and you get it half off too (employee discounts are a blessing). The only awful part of the unoriginality was when you get calls from people that really do think this a Papa John’s and order stuff that you don’t carry or sometimes they order stuff that doesn’t even exist; Other brand be damned!

 

Chloe is gone on a delivery and you’re just sitting on the prep table playing some generic block busting game on your phone. Normally you’d be using this table to actually prep ingredients but this is pretty much the last hour you have tonight before closing and you really don’t want to overload the morning guys with that much pepperoni.

 

Suddenly the phone rings and it startles you so much that your finger slips on your phone and gets dangerously close to hitting the forbidden ‘watch ad for a bonus’ button that you’ve always chosen to pointedly ignore.

 

_‘Hah not today, capitalism.’_

 

Nervously, you hop down and pick up the phone. Usually you get lucky enough to only get calls when Chloe’s in the store, she’s got your back when it comes to stressful social stuff. But you can’t always get lucky you suppose.

 

Clearing your throat you shakily say, “T-thanks for calling Papa Joe’s, my name’s Max how can I help you?” You try to put on the fake positive voice that your manager taught you. Normally it’s supposed to ‘radiate happiness’ and ‘make people buy more pizza’ but when you do it it’s just a pathetic croak that leaks optimism.

 

You hear a sigh and the familiar sound of someone turning down their hi-fi just to be able to understand your vague anxious mumbling, Oh god.

 

“Maxine.”

 

“Victoria.”

 

A pause happens and your hands start to sweat from the wave of social anxiety. Victoria never orders pizza from here? You wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t know what a pizza is. _‘Carbs and grease? I’ll pass on your peasant food.’_

 

“...D-delivery or carryout?” You hesitantly add on, it’s something you’re supposed to say anyways and you honestly would say anything if it got you out of this silence.

 

She scoffs, “What?”

 

God this girl is impossible, “You know...For the pizza?” You suspect Victoria’s thinking you’re impossible right about now too.

 

“No Maxine I don’t want a pizza, I want…” She slows down, you can feel her chewing over her next words, spitting them out very carefully; Depositing them into the phone call covered in venom, “I’m. Wondering if your place of work. Is...Hiring.”

 

Wow. You didn’t expect that. On the rung of scenarios you had expected would happen, that would’ve been a million and two.

 

Your brain thankfully doesn’t short circuit over this question, “Yeah actually! We’re hiring for managers, drivers, and crew,” So that’s basically every job in the store but Victoria doesn’t need to know your problem with sentence structure.

 

She made a pleased hum noise (or at least that’s what it sounded like over the slight static of the phones mixed with her rich kid music), “I would...Like a job then,” Yes she does absolutely sound like an alien trying to figure out human customs.

 

Now is when your brain short circuits and you get lost in thought for a second. This isn’t a joke? Victoria Chase is seriously asking for a job and she’s not even being all that mean about it? A selfish and slightly stupid part of your brain considers rewinding and telling her that you’re not hiring just to piss the queen bee off. Refuse her access to something.

 

But that would be mean, and as shitty as you think working with Victoria (the girl who looks like she’s never worked a day in her life) would be, it’s pretty unethical to deny someone a job just because she was catty to you sometimes.

 

“Maxine?”

 

When she says Maxine it snaps you out of your train of thought, like being splashed with cold water.

 

“Uh, yeah. We don’t have a website for online applications so you’ll have to come down here and grab one.”

 

You can feel her rolling her eyes from across the phone lines, “Just grab one before you leave and bring it to me?”

 

That response is so infuriatingly frustrating that you can’t even wrap your head around it. This whole conversation is actually that exact brand of frustrating!

 

_‘Yes hello minimum wage worker, It is I, Victoria “Rich Bitch” Chase and I want to live life like the poor for once, I require you to bring me the paper work of course. I wouldn’t lift a finger otherwise!’_

 

But instead of voicing your frustrations you just roll your shoulders and bare it, “Yeah sure, I’ll be over to give it to you in the morning.”

 

“Very well,” Another pause and a swallow, “Uhm. Thank you. Max.”

 

Then she very hurriedly hangs up, leaving you to wonder what the fuck just happened.

 

-

 

“NO WAY!?” Chloe shouts in disbelief from where she’s perched. If sitting on the prep table was the second most disrespectful thing to do in the store then Chloe literally squatting on it with her dirty second hand doc martins must be the first.

 

“Yes way!” You try to shoo her down so you can wipe down the table with a sanitized rag, “I swear that Victoria Chase just called, you can check the caller id if you don’t believe me!”

 

Chloe doesn’t move from her spot, even when you try pushing her. Gently at first but then you throw your full weight on her. Not even a budge.

 

“Nah man, I believe that she called I just don’t believe that she called asking for a _job_.” Chloe laughed at your efforts making you want to redouble them, “That must’ve been fucking mortifying for her.”

 

You stop pushing and just end up leaning your head on her torn jeans, “Yeah she did sound pretty mortified, at one point I thought she was malfunctioning.”

 

Chloe takes a second to ruffle your hair, “You mean like you do in pretty much any social situation ever?”

 

“UGH Chloe that’s so not fair,” You try pushing her off again only to nearly make yourself fall down instead, “You know I have an actual mental thing and shit, she’s just rich and not used to asking for favors.”

 

Deciding to be merciful Chloe jumps down for you so you can finally return to your cleaning duties, “I mean, I dunno man she could have autism too? You ever asked?”

 

Fixing her with a glare you wrap your wet towel around her hands and slap her back with it, earning a well deserved ‘yelp’ from her, “Not funny Chloe.”

 

“I swear to God I wasn’t trying to be mean or make an autism joke; You _know_ i punched the last guy that said something like that to you,” Chloe rubs at her arm and is actually looking a little dejected, like she believes that you’d drop your almost thirteen year friendship with her just because of a dumb comment.

 

“Yeah and Warren still flinches around you.”

 

Chloe pounds her fists together in a way that she thinks makes her look cool (and it kind of does but you’d never tell her that), “Good! I’d do it again too!”

 

You snort and throw the dirty rag into the pile in one of the backrooms, “Honestly if Warren said something like that twice _I’d_ probably be the one punching him.”

 

“OH hell yeah Mad Max, finally you’re learning the importance of self respect-” The conversation gets cut off by Chloe’s ringtone (“Down Below by Slow Oritz”) starts playing.

 

“Shit, it’s Rach,” Chloe looks like she wants to answer it but looks up to you first; Never wanting to abandon you _just in case_. She’s always been super overprotective like that even when you don’t need it.

 

“Go ahead, talk about gross things with your girlfriend, I’m pretty sure I can handle some ghosts and pizza crusts,” You gesture around with your arms, the place was empty and there were no orders coming through. Truly a prime time to make kissy noises at your gf through the phone.

 

Chloe gives you a thumbs up as she walks into the back room for more privacy, “Baby! I missed you so much all day…” Their conversation trails off as she gets farther away, you’re pretty sure you don’t want to hear the rest of it.

 

Rachel’s been dating Chloe for...About two years now? They apparently started in Chloe’s Sophomore year of highschool and just never saw a reason to stop. They’re the type of couple that are so disgustingly cute together that it’d make even a love pessimist such as yourself jealous.

 

And it’s not like you’re jealous. You really aren’t.

 

It’s definitely not like you want to have someone that would call you up in the middle of the night when you’re supposed to be working just to check in on you. And it’s definitely not like you want to have someone that would definitely answer those same kinds of calls from you no matter what.

 

Okay maybe you’re a little jealous.

 

You’re glad that Rachel was there for Chloe when you couldn’t be though. You’ll never stop be being grateful for that.

 

There was a time when you had (foolishly) thought that Rachel was trying to compete for your spot of bestest friend ever. When you had come back she was constantly all over Chloe and it made you sick in a weird way; Like you were being replaced.

 

God were you glad to find out that Chloe was just Massively gay and that they were just the normal kind of clingy for a highschool relationship.

 

“No babe we can’t do that…” Your ears perk up as you catch a bit of their conversation, suddenly intrigued you walk closer to the threshold of the backroom Chloe’s in, “Seriously Max is here!”

 

“Babe that’s super…” Chloe seemed to have an internal battle with herself in that moment, “I mean. Yeah that is kind of hot.”

 

And suddenly you are completely and totally grossed out, you escape as fast as is humanly possible. You wish your rewind powers affected you too so you could forget about the sins forced upon your virginal ears.

 

“Chloe! I’m gonna check out now, clean up’s all done!” You hurry to the front door, wanting to not invade their ‘private’ time anymore than you already have.

 

“Are you sure you don’t need me to drive you back?” Chloe comes out from the backroom, face flushed a bit but pretending like she’s definitely not a complete horndog.

 

“Nope no, it’s fine, I can still catch the last bus back to Blackwell if I hurry.”

 

She shrugs and then goes back to her call with Rachel. Thank God.

 

Before leaving you remember a certain phone call of your own earlier today. Risking hearing more saucy dialogue between your best friend and her girlfriend you hurriedly sneak in and grab a job application from underneath the register.

 

“Mm, Rach…”

 

You don’t even bother with walking around the counter like a normal person, this is an emergency evacuation so you just jump it.

 

Victoria better appreciate your sacrifice.


End file.
